Figment.com picks up where Facebook leaves off

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The site itself is an inviting space that tells visitors: “This is your place to Read, Write, Connect."

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Out: Banging out manuscripts on a typewriter, dispatching them to the all-mighty publisher, and then waiting on pins and needles to see if you’ve won the literary lottery.

In: Tapping out a short story on your cell phone/PDA/laptop, posting it online, swapping feedback, tips, and “fave” books with a virtual community of aspiring writers and literati-in-training. And oh yeah, maybe you’ll be discovered by a publishing agent.

Inspired by the success of the very young, hip cell phone novel (fiction composed on mobile devices), Figment.com is the invention of two prominent editors hoping to create a “social network for young-adult fiction.”

Figment.com launched Monday with 4,000 registered users and more than 3,000 works posted on the site. The site itself is an inviting space, a clean white page decorated with spunky red and gray doodles and friendly “sketched” icons instructing visitors that “This is your place to Read, Write, Connect.”

The site picks up where Facebook leaves off, and taps into the explosive popularity of teenage fiction. ("Twilight," anyone?) For that reason, it’s likely to be as appealing to young writers as it is to publishers scouting the next, well, "Twilight." Several publishers have already signed on, including Running Press Kids, a member of the Perseus Books Group.

The site has a lot going for it – teens can claim their own space, outside of sometimes stuffy 10th-grade English lessons, to explore fiction on their own terms.

It’s a decidedly un-intimidating way to start writing anything (novels, short stories, poems, fantasy, science fiction, biographical works, serial novels), on any device (cell phones, laptops, tablets, PDAs), and then post it for anyone to read and give feedback.